Yarn stores are a very particular type of place. Unlike many types of stores, they have personalities all their own, and knitters have certain expectations when they enter one. This isn’t really fair because they aren’t homes, they are businesses. But, somehow, when a knitter enters a good local yarn store (LYS), it feels as […]
This month I had the chance to teach at Lion Brand Yarn Studio, in Greenwich Village, NYC. I was honored and pleased to be invited, and had a wonderful time. The staff and students are amazing, and if you go to NYC, you should definitely make the time to check it out. […]
Caterpillar Green yarns have been on my radar for awhile. The last straw was seeing Stephanie Pearl-McFee knitting with it at YarnFest. She was crazy in love with it, so I put it on my list of things to check out. I signed up for the mailing list, and when a shop order came up, […]
“Sassy” is a winner! It is comfortable and cozy, and very different from any other sweater I’ve knit. Bill’s eyes widened when he saw me in it, and he admitted that he hadn’t been very impressed with it, when it was being knit. But he loved it, on me! Color-blocking really needs to be seen […]
The knitting is done, ends are all buried, but there is still an important task to do before finishing a cardigan. Picking out the right buttons, and sewing them on. I searched through my button stash (yes, of course I have one!) and found the perfect button. It fits well into my simple “k2tog, yo” […]
Preparing for my only teaching trip to the East Coast this year, I developed a new class for teaching everything Annetarsia in a single day. I knit 3 fun projects for “Annetarsia: Be the Boss of your Intarsia”, and I knit them all twice, using different yarns. I wasn’t ready to move on, so I […]
Throughout this whole project, I wondered how this was going to work. There isn’t a way to try it on, until the very, very end. It is an exercise in positive thinking. It is also a really great design, because the finished project fits perfectly and is easy to wear. Look, the sleeves actually ended […]
The Swirl technically has one seam. After finishing the shoulder you may proceed to seam the sleeve from shoulder to cuff, but I recommend a different path. Because the end of a seam is often where fabric seems to bunch up inappropriately, end a seam where smoothing the fabric is easiest, generally under the arm. […]
Having established the seam for the back collar, working from the center back, you will approach the curve of the shoulder. Seaming the collar to the back is fairly straight-forward, as you match stitches on each side. As you approach the shoulder, where you will be seaming stitches from the collar to rows from the […]
The Swirl only has one seam, but it is a doozy. I found finishing this sweater to be a fun challenge, and thought that I would share how I decided to do the seaming and finishing work. Double-click on any photo to enlarge for details. My yarn, Noro Silk Garden Lite, is lovely, although not […]